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GLOBISH ACADEMIA
“FROM ONLINE ENGLISH SCHOOL TO LEARNING
SOLUTION”
BY
MR. TAKARN ANANTHOTHAI
AN INDEPENDENT STUDY SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL
FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR
THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION
(GLOBAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP) INTERNATIONAL MASTER
IN BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION
FACULTY OF COMMERCE AND ACCOUNTANCY
THAMMASAT UNIVERSITY
ACADEMIC YEAR 2017
COPYRIGHT OF THAMMASAT UNIVERSITY
Ref. code: 25605802043132RUA
GLOBISH ACADEMIA
“FROM ONLINE ENGLISH SCHOOL TO LEARNING
SOLUTION”
BY
MR. TAKARN ANANTHOTHAI
AN INDEPENDENT STUDY SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL
FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR
THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION
(GLOBAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP) INTERNATIONAL MASTER
IN BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION
FACULTY OF COMMERCE AND ACCOUNTANCY
THAMMASAT UNIVERSITY
ACADEMIC YEAR 2017
COPYRIGHT OF THAMMASAT UNIVERSITY
Ref. code: 25605802043132RUA
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Independent Study Title GLOBISH ACADEMIA
“FROM ONLINE ENGLISH SCHOOL TO
LEARNING SOLUTION”
Author Mr. Takarn Ananthothai
Degree Master of Business Administration
(Global Entrepreneurship)
Department/Faculty/University International Master in Business Administration
Faculty of Commerce and Accountancy
Thammasat University
Independent Study Advisor Suthikorn Kingkaew, Ph. D
Academic years 2017
ABSTRACT
Globish Academia was established in July 2014 based on a business model
that was successful in Japan and Korea. Globish Academia is a provider of innovative
online learning platform for English Language that can deliver highly relevant and
effective lessons at a fraction of the price of traditional classes. Globish have been
operating since mid 2015 and now have over 3,000 students on our platform and has
grew the operating team to 26 people.
The current product is an online one-on-one live class with foreign teachers
and 24/7 customer service. Curriculum is developed in-house based on CEFR standard,
and specifically designed to facilitate practical conversations in classes. Our curriculum
is developed in-house based on Globish concept, a world- recognized curriculum of
enough English.
Keywords: Globish Academia, CEFR
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to take this opportunity to express my deepest gratitude to my
advisor, Dr. Suthikorn Kingkaew who supports me to improve and challenge myself to
think differently and perform beyond my limitation. Also Khun Sophon
Vijitmethavanich, my classmate and a brother. Without his mentoring, I will never
improve my business mindset and business sense to the current stage. The advices and
lessons I has learned from him shall carry me a long way in life journey.
I also would like to take this opportunity to thank all IMBA teachers,
officers and committees for a unique class that gives me real life experiences in order
to prepare for what is to come after my graduation. Furthermore, special thanks to Khun
Noey Chonticha for her flexibility, sincerity, and hard-working for encouraging me to
graduate together with batch 12.
Lastly, I would like to thank my parents, family and friends for all the
support and idea sharing. Thank for always being there for me and give me an emotional
support all the time. Your encouragement and care are significant part of my
achievement.
Mr. Takarn Ananthothai
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
ABSTRACT (1)
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS (2)
LIST OF TABLES (6)
LIST OF FIGURES (7)
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS (8)
CHAPTER 1 COMPANY OVERVIEW 1
1.1 Mission Statement 1
1.2 Current Status 1
1.3 Objectives 2
CHAPTER 2 PRODUCT AND SERVICE 4
2.1 Product Learning Goal 4
2.2 Product Philosophy 4
2.3 Feature 1: Online Class 5
2.4 Feature 2: Online Course 7
2.5 Feature 3: Online Coach 9
CHAPTER 3 MARKET RESEARCH 11
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3.1 Market Primary Research 11
3.2 Market Secondary Research 15
3.3 Competitor Analysis 19
3.3.1 Topica Native 19
3.3.2 Engoo 20
3.3.3 EF English Live 23
3.3.4 Wall Street English 24
CHAPTER 4 BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT AND COMPANY ANALYSIS 28
4.1 Company SWOT Analysis 28
4.1.1 Strength 28
4.1.2 Weakness 28
4.1.3 Opportunities 29
4.1.4 Threat 29
4.2 Company Business Model Analysis 29
4.2.1 Customer Segment 29
4.2.2 Revenue Streams 30
4.2.3 Channels 30
4.2.4 Customer Relationships 31
4.2.5 Key Activities 31
4.2.6 Key Resoures 31
4.2.7 Course Structure 32
4.2.8 Key Partners 32
4.3 Board Insight on Business Enviroment 32
4.4 Board Insight on Internal Performance 34
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CHAPTER 5 REFINED SCALING STRATEGY 36
5.1 TOWS Analysis 36
5.2 Product & Market Development Strategy 37
5.2.1 Assessment 45
5.2.2 Coach 45
5.2.3 Executive Coach 45
5.2.4 Virtual Group 46
5.2.5 Focus 46
5.2.6 Dashboard 46
5.3 Platform Development Strategy 47
5.3.1 First part of assessment 47
5.3.2 Second part of assessment 49
5.4 Social Impact Strategy 50
CHAPTER 6 FINANCIAL PLAN 56
6.1 Financial Projection 56
6.1.1 Standard Projection 56
6.1.2 Product and B2B Projection 56
6.1.3 5-years Projection 57
6.2 Key Assumption 57
6.3 Investor Offering 58
CHAPTER 7 MANAGEMENT 60
7.1 Organizational Structure 60
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7.2 Management Team 60
CHAPTER 8 APPENDICES 65
8.1 Annual Newsletter 62
8.2 Balance SheetIncome Statement 64
8.3 Income Statement 65
8.4 Cash Flow 66
8.5 Sample of Product/Services 67
REFERENCES 71
BIOGRAPHY 72
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LIST OF TABLES
Tables Page
2.1 The differences between WebRTC and Publish/Subscribe messaging 6
3.1 Reasons of purchasing 13
3.2 The differences between group and private classes at EF 24
3.3 Wall Street English’s MULTIMETHOD 25
5.1 TOWS Analysis 36
5.2 Ideal stages of customize industries 38
5.3 Standard Course 42
5.4 Professional Course 43
5.5 First part of assessment 48
5.6 Second part of assessment 49
5.7 Expected budget spending 51
5.8 Timeline of one year plan and processes 53
5.9 Phase of learning process 55
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LIST OF FIGURES
Figures Page
3.1 Female Age Analysis 11
3.2 Male Age Analysis 12
3.3 The market share of online English institution in Thailand 12
3.4 TOEFL score comparison 16
3.5 Topica Native’s learning method 20
3.6 Example of lesson Engoo provide 21
3.7 Example of material by topic of Engoo 22
3.8 The comparison between Globish Academia & its competitiors 27
5.1 Pipeline of ten months program 52
6.1 Example of Standard Projection 56
6.2 Example of Product and B2B Projection 56
6.3 5-years Projection 57
7.1 Globish Academia Organization Structure 60
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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
Symbols/Abbreviations Terms
USD United State Dollars
THB Thai Baht
CAC Customer Aqusition Cost
UX User Experience
UI User Interface
WebRTC Web-Real Time Communications
AI Artificial Intelligence
IPO Initial Public Offering
CEFR The Common European Framework of
Reference forlanguages
B2B Business to Business
B2C Business to Customer
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CHAPTER 1
COMPANY OVERVIEW
1.1 Mission Statement
Company mission statement is “For those who pursue to speak English can
speak English”. At Globish Academia, it pursues to be a solution for practical spoken
English for career improvement by overcoming traditional limitations such as high cost
of foreign teachers, large classroom size, and time-related constraints through the use
of technology. Globish Academia is operating in Thailand and just recently have
expanded to Indonesia.
1.2 Current Status
Started at July 2014, Globish Academia has made differences to over 2,000
students in the past 2 years. In 2016 the company’s "monthly revenue" have reached the
30,000 USD milestone at an average of 17.4% month-on-month income growth,
reflecting in positive cash flow. Globish Academia is spending on average around
1,900THB on CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost) against average sales ticket of 11,000
THB. Students are taking 2.8 classes per week on average with 17.2% course re-purchase.
2017 is the year of discovery. Heading to the Year of Innovation, Globish Academia
aims to be well-perceived as the top English Learning Innovator for Better Career. The
product will be more advanced in terms of personalization, comprehensiveness, and
relevance to corporate purposes. Students’ career success is their goal. Globish
Academia will focus on the effectiveness of learning outcome in real life rather than
through test scores.
The company still in product-market fit stage discovery. The business model
has been mostly discovered. Globish Academia found the need from retail
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market and the validation of its product has been done to serve them. Its growth and
operation system have been stable after numerous trials and errors. The strengths of the
company are in tele-selling, increasing purchase size, recruiting, social media
optimization, and public relations. Most of the time it came from adapting from its
competitor. However, these are key crucial observation that seek to be strategized upon.
Revenue has been growing constantly without clear pattern or plan. Globish
Academia has a great community engagement in Facebook and good control in
customer acquisition cost. Company optimize its lead generation campaign according
to the Facebook profile of users whom applied in previous month. But they never have
plan and rather shoot their engagement post and sale promotion according to sales
insight, seasonal trend, and media exposure from public relation. Globish Academia
focused on minimizing marketing spending to get the monthly result from the given
data, rather experimenting new products, key audience, or campaign. Therefore, the
result has been varied with no clear measurement of success in each campaign or each
month. Now they do not yet see who are their key customer and the key reason they buy
their product. Lack of tool in website conversion monitoring gave them disadvantage in
studying previous UX/UI behavior (User Experience/User Interface).
1.3 Objective
Globish Academia ’s impact objectives are built upon crucial problems
solve following;
● Education is irrelevant to labor market and human creativity.
● Public sector cannot scale and adopt new technology fast enough to
escape middle-income trap economy.
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Thread of robotics and sign of skill mismatch forecast worse
unemployment and social gap rate.
Therefore, Globish Academia’s objectives are
● Develop student to acquire a skill that is mismatch in the market
● Develop platform to scale or help company achieve goal
● Develop leader that solve social problems
In terms of financial objective, Globish Academia aims to be the online
English school with the largest market capitalization in South East Asia. In 2016, total
revenue were 6 million baht with 17% month on month growth. This year 2017, Globish
Academia is looking to raise another round of funding at 15 to 20 million baht from
Venture Capital Firms. Spendings of the fund will be used accordingly, 40% for
operation cost, 25% for marketing and sales, 11% for sales and customer service team
expansion, 6% for product and technology development, and the rest is a buffer. With
funding, Globish Academia has forecasted this year total revenue would be 20 million
baht with an average of 1.8 million baht monthly revenue. At this rate of sales growth,
breakeven will be around mid 2018.
Besides expanding sales and customer service team, next step in into the
project is to continue to develop products and services to be more effective and efficient.
Apart from improving the current core aspects of product which are the booking system
and video conference platform, courses and curriculum, and customer service Globish
Academia aims to offer a more variety of courses, add more materials that will help
students learn to speak and communicate better Gamification is another element
Globish Academia will use to motivate students for their learning outcome.
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CHAPTER 2
PRODUCT AND SERVICE
2.1 Product Learning Goal
The company’s main goal is for students to at least be able to communicate
fluently (CEFR B1 Level) in English rather than being able to speak grammatically
correct English. From an extensive research on ways to speak English fluently and how
Thai students have been learning English for over 12 years of schooling, The company
believe that in order for students to reach B1 fluency, or to be able to communicate
effectively in English, grammar should never be a concern in the early stages. Grammar
is indeed important in speaking English. However, knowing all grammar rules does not
allow students to speak, as proven by Thai educational system, which focuses only on
grammar rules and sentence structures. Students only require basic vocabulary and
minimal grammatical structures in order to start talking right away. Grammar is to be
delivered only implicitly by correcting their sentences or giving them more natural
ways of delivering the same meaning. Only once students hit the B1 level where they
can communicate on topics and situations occurring in daily life such as school, leisure,
work, and travel can then they can go deeper into grammar.
2.2 Product Philosophy
The definition of product includes more than just lesson materials but also
covers supplemental content such as vocabulary, articles, videos, and services that The
company will provide for the best experience in practicing English and learning
convenience.
The curriculum will be focused on coach as a Coach (not as a teacher). The
company will emphasize to the student that its coaches are someone to guide them on
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how to communicate in English rather than being seen as just a teacher who gives
lectures and checks understanding.
Active Learning Students must be encouraged to speak at all times even if
he/she is just putting words together to convey what he/she has in mind. Lessons will be
designed for students to read, speak, come up with their own responses to different
situations, and discuss on various topics. Furthermore, content that should be delivered
in a lecture-based method will be minimized.
Confidence is KEY. Confidence allows students to speak in class, make
mistakes, and learn by being corrected by his/her coach. Supplement materials will
developed and provided to deliver higher confidence in speaking.
Enough English The goal is to be able to communicate effectively, NOT to
speak perfect English. Coaches should emphasize on simple yet effective
communication rather than grammatically correct, and sophisticated sentences. Lessons
will be designed using common words and phrases, and emphasize on natural spoken
English. Responses in role-plays will be spoken English and may not always be a fully
grammatically correct sentence.
Situational Based - Lessons will be situational-based (for higher level
courses) in order to expand practical English competency rather than academically
English competency.
2.3 Feature 1: Online Class
Globish Academia want to shift the mindset of traditional and boring
lecture-based English classroom to a fun, interactive, and practical classroom. Coach is
a language partner, helping students to practice speaking according to situations and
topics according to lesson materials. The key is to make students feel comfortable in the
class as they have fun talking and discussing topics with you. The more student talks,
the more they get used to forming sentences and thinking in English
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As online class system run on browser without any installation, the
company use WebRTC or Web-Real Time Communications. WebRTC allows the
system to operate on the user’s web browser without the need of application
installations. In order for a video conference to occur, a server will help set up
handshaking to establish the connection between two clients (users). After a connection
has been established, the two clients can communicate by sending video and audio in a
peer to peer model. The server will not be able to audit the data sent between the two
clients.
As for other features such text chat, slides, and whiteboard,
publish/subscribe model is a model that will be setup for clients to exchange data. The
central messaging server is a role that is responsible for relaying all messages between
different users of the company application. For example, if the instructor type a text
message to everyone in the class, the data will be “published” to the central messaging
server. Then all the students who are subscribed to this channel will receive instructor’s
text message. Unlike the WebRTC, is never a peer-to-peer connection made here as there
is only an exchange of data with no video or audio component to it. Below is the
differences between WebRTC and Publish/ Subscribe messaging:
Table 2.1 The differences between WebRTC and Publish/ Subscribe messaging
WebRTC (Web-Real Time communication) Publish/Subscribe messaging
● Peer to Peer (after initial
handshaking)
● Encrypted
● Can pass video, audio, or data
● Uses an central messaging
server to relay all messages
between publishers and
subscriber.
● Not encrypted by default
● Can pass text data typically
● Scalable
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2. 4 Feature 2: Online Course
At Globish, the company believe in communicating in English rather than
speaking correct English and this is why Globish Academia puts the focus on
developing courses aiming to facilitate as much talking as possible instead of a lecture-
style classroom where student have to listen most of the time. As the company pursue
to offer practical English for career improvement, it is necessary that Globish have a
variety of courses designed to all sort of jobs.
All Globish courses have been designed to be 12 lessons/month because in
this way students will have to take at least 3 classes/week. The ideal length of a course
is 24-48 lessons long depending on the content difficulty and necessity.
To draft an outline of a Globish course, the company takes these points in
consideration:
1. Course objective
a. Customer usage
b. Language level
2. Number of lessons
a. Content availability
b. Content necessity (repetitiveness)
c. Lesson format
3. Lesson orders
a. Module grouping
b. Chronological v.s. logical order (difficulty)
4. Storyline
a. Storyline continuity
b. Storyline and characters connectivity
As mentioned above, a lesson is designed to facilitate as much practical
conversation as possible. The basics of a lesson includes objective, main lesson or
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roleplay as an example or explanation to students, then challenges (exercise) that
provide scenario context to facilitate a conversation.
There are currently 5 types of Globish lessons:
1. Freetalking-based lesson
This type of lesson is a freetalk with a specific topic such as
introduce yourself, present your company, etc. It is used for a simple lesson that does
not need any content or scenario context. See lesson 1-2.
2. Lecture-based lesson
This type of lesson contains general why and how-to content that
can be applied and use in many situations. The lesson contains a Main Lesson section
of content and followed by 4 challenges which the first three are given scenario context
and the fourth is to promote student-coach relationship. See lesson 3, 8-9, 13-15, 20-21,
25-26 (In the Hotel English Course, lectured-based lessons were designed to be used for
restaurants and airlines courses as well).
3. Roleplay-based lesson
This type of lesson contains roleplays as examples and followed by
3 challenges with different scenarios.
4. Challenge-based lesson
This type of lesson contains “The Setting” section where it gives a
brief setting of a scenario for that lesson and followed by 5 challenges with different
scenario context or set of information depending on how the lesson is designed.
5. Full-practice challenge lesson
This type of lesson contains no informational content or examples.
It only contains challenges from each modules of the course arranged in its own
storyline for the student to practice the whole thing in one lesson.
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Main content section can be either Main Lesson in a lecture-based lesson,
Roleplay in a roleplay-based lesson, or The Setting in a challenge-based lesson. The
objective of this section is to provide input for students so they understand how they
could achieve the lesson objective, and do challenges.
The objective of Challenge Section is to get students to speak what they
suppose to be able to speak in that particular lesson, not just to check understanding (a
good challenge should ask students to do something rather than just ask a question for
an answer). In order to facilitate a conversation from both side, there should be different
sets of information between student and coach so they must communicate to co-achieve
an objective. Information provided should be enough that it allows a lengthy and
detailed conversation but leave enough room for spontaneity, creativity, and
improvisation.
The “Vocabulary” section is provided in order to help students improve
faster. Students may know what they want to say, but they may lack of the vocabularies
to do so. By providing them those essential vocabularies, it allow students to respond
appropriately. Student can think of a conversation of challenges, then decided which
vocabulary should be provided.
The “For Next Class” section is to let student know what they will learn in
the next lesson. The objective is to generate curiosity which is why it ends in a question.
By doing so, it also encourages the more proactive students to be more prepared for
next lessons.
2.5 Feature 3: Online Coach
The coach’s mindset is aligned with the Globish Learning Philosophy;
coaches are here to help students improve by guiding and not lecturing. Company’s
coaches focus on lesson objective and ensure students get to use English accordingly
as the focus is not academic competency but practicality to students’ daily usage.
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Moreover, coaches are aware of class timing, how a lesson fits with other
lessons, and give relevant contexts and examples. The keys is to build good relationship
while teaching and enable to encouraging, giving positive and constructive feedback,
using personal examples, being mindful of letting students speak, and stepping in when
necessary to avoid long silences that will pressure students. Here are the traits of
company’s coaches.
● Fun: The coach deliver lessons in an engaging environment. Fun and
active classes will get students to feel more comfortable and talk
more. The more students talk, the faster they will reach good fluency.
● Facilitating: The coach facilitate lessons instead of teaching.
Facilitating means asking questions and getting students to talk.
Student talks more than listen and coach listen and correct students
mistakes.
● Personalizing: As different students are motivated differently, their
coaches should understand those differences, then apply and adjust
their teaching style to meet with the student’s behaviors.
Currently, the company has around 20 coaches from the Philippines and
Serbia. Each of them required to have either more than a year online teaching experience
or hold a teaching certificate. They have compensated monthly from the accumulated
classes they have taught in a month. The average rate we compensated per class is
around 2 to 3 US dollars. The company uses Paypal to transfer the compensation in the
end of every month.
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CHAPTER 3
MARKET RESEARCH
3.1 Market Primary Research
The survey has conducted as a necessary tool to help company understand
the customer’s viewpoints and enable to come up with both of market plans and
effective strategies. Company analyzed customer behavior from approximately 110
student in other institutions, it was shown that the average age of customer based are at
minimum of 18 to the maximum of 42, in which two-third of them was female and the
rest was male. Nearly two-fifth of overall student was the female ages between 23 to 27,
which were considered as the highest group among others. While the highest number of
the male students are consisted of two age groups which are 18 to 22 and 23 to 27 and
each group carried approximately 27 percent.
Figure 3.1 Female Age Analysis
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Figure 3.2 Male Age Analysis
To investigate the brand awareness of Globish Academia, the company
made the comparison of four digital English institutions by using Facebook Like as a
tool to indicate on how people perceive each brand. The graph below demonstrates the
brand awareness plus the market share of online English Institution in Thailand. The
red color at 43 percent was represented the Topica Native, followed by the orange color
at 41.9 percent was belonged to Globish Academia, whereas English4speak was ranked
at third place with blue color at percentage of 11.6 and purple color of Engoo at 3.5
percent respectively.
Figure 3.3 The market share of online English institution in Thailand
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Based on the data analysis, it also appeared that students are most likely to
study on the average of 13 times in which it was matched with Globish Academia’s
course of 12 times per month. In addition, the average sale per head was 2192.33 THB
whereas Globish Academia’s course of 12 times will offer charged at 2,220 THB. Top
Five group categories of students are businessman/women, university students, office
learners, engineer, and merchant respectively.
The survey particularly focuses on the customer’s purchasing behavior
upon the Globish Academia courses. The results showed that there are three main group
of students who decided to study with Globish Academia as mentioned in below table.
Table 3.1 Reasons of purchasing
Decision made Description
Courses concept This group of customer is appreciated with the Globish’s
academia course outline, concept, flexibility and
accessibility of learning online English. Further, the
reasonable price and friendly coaches are the other main
factors that students are willing to study at Globish.
Price Comparison This group of customer has compared the price between
Globish Academia and other online English institutions.
Due to the reasonable price offered and 24/7 accessibility
of online classes, these are the gain point that students have
chosen Globish Academia as a first priority.
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Marketing campaign This group of customer would make decision later for 2 to
3 weeks after they have observation the courses outline.
One of the main reason that students were chosen because
of the effective marketing campaign such as promotion and
brand reputation. Most of the students in this group were
categorized as university students from the age of 18 to 22
whereas they need the confirmation from parents.
To be more precise, most of students that would like to take an online
English learning because they see the beneficial and potential of English language.
Some students have to improve their English skills in order to compete with other
candidates in working environment, while some students need to develop their speaking
to some certain levels within a short period of time. Therefore, students who study at
Globish Academia will be more focusing on the speaking English for work and applied
it in daily life usage, following by grammar and vocabulary in later on.
According to The Competitiveness among English Institution (2013), since
the AEC integration, there is higher competitive in both digital English institution and
among learners. Therefore, the each of institutions have to come up with new strategy
such as attractive course outline and productive promotion in order to compete in this
market. On the other hand, it is necessary for learners to improve their English
proficiency as a way to remain the competitiveness in the working environment and
enable to communicate with other learners who come from AEC countries. With all
these reasons, it can support that Globish Academia has to provide the appliance course
content as well as effective marketing to capture larger groups of customers in this
competitive market.
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3.2 Market Secondary Research
Talking about the quality of Thai education system, vast majority of people
seem to believe that it has been failed especially in English language that normal Thai
students have to study since their first grade. The failure has revealed when people saw
the outcomes from both of the fearsome of using English in daily life and a low score
performances. According to Keawmala, the writer of Thai Education Failures which
published on Asian Correspondent, people who spend their time in Thailand for a while
can easily notice that general Thais fear of speaking English in daily life. Many of
service learners, shop assistants, or even office staffs who are university graduated can
be seen struggling to find someone else in order to help them assist foreigners.
It is even more concern when this problem happened with the former Thai
prime minister Yingluck at her first meeting with Hillary Clinton in November 2011.
The meeting were lost because of Yingluck’s English state. Another considerable point
is about an under average score performance. Based on the report, Thailand ranked
116th out of 163 countries on TOEFL or Test of English as a Foreign Language.
Thailand were classified as middle-income country, and one cannot deny that Thailand’s
TOEFL score is very poor. The average total score of students in Thailand in 2010 was
at 75, which was below the average of international level of 80. The scores for speaking,
listening, reading, and writing were all below average. In fact, the English proficiency
level among the general population in Thailand is far worse than what is reflected in
Thailand’s TOEFL scores (Keawmala, 2012). The figure below is provided to
demonstrate the comparison of TOEFL score among the Asian countries.
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Figure 3.4 TOEFL score comparison
It has been prove that Thailand education system fail because 12 years of
study English at school did not develop enough English skills and proficiency to Thais’
students as it suppose to be. Globish Academia services can eliminate the above
customer pain points as the company has advanced technology and understanding in
terms of customers’ needs. The company own the program named Artificial Intelligence,
it significantly benefits Globish as the company will understand customer needs better
through this method. Artificial Intelligence or AI is the program which is designed to
measure all the different levels of English skill. The assessment includes Confidence
Fluency, Listening, Speaking, Speech and Pronunciation,
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Grammar, Vocabulary, and Sentences and Phrases. Therefore, the company will
understand which areas student was lack of, so Globish can offer the effective and
efficient course for students in order to pull out the highest capability of each student.
Globish has been complimented on how the company turn those 25 minutes in each
class into the best learning experience. The reliability also take place when all of the
coaches from Globish have teaching certificate. Within one course, the students have
seen their obvious progress from the AI assessment.
Many people have concerned about the readiness of the Thai workforce
joining the AEC integration due to Thai learners are still in the group of “very low
proficiency’’ in English language (Nguyen, n.d.). According to Nancy Huyen Nguyen,
the researcher from the university of the Thai Chamber of Commerce, an enterprise
survey of World Bank that took place in 2006 revealed that slightly more than one third
of professional learners were categorized as poor and around 10 percent were classified
as very poor in their English language proficiency. As well as Jobstreet.com, one of the
reliable site on Internet Recruitment in Asia Pacific has processed the assessment called
JobStreet.com English Language Assessment (JELA) in order to investigated the
English proficiency on Asia workforces. Up to 1.5 Million learners from Singapore,
Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand, engaged in this assessment. Randomly
40 questions out of 1000 from JELA has been tested for all levels of learners from the
junior level and senior executives to managers and senior managers. Thai learners got
55% in which it is ranked as the lowest in English skills among counterparts in ASEAN.
With the same assessment, Singapore has the highest score at 81 percent, followed by
Filipinos at 73 percent, Malaysians at 72 percent and Indonesians at 59 percent
respectively. In addition, Thai learners who worked in manufacturing sector got only
the average of 17 percent.
The company saw the customer pain point from problem mentioned above,
those Thai learners will need to improve their English skills, so they will be able to
compete with others who have higher English proficiency. As one of the AEC
integration purposes is to facilitate the movement of skills, capital, investments,
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goods, and services. Based on the AEC Mutual Recognition Agreement (MRA), eight
career industries will be allow to work freely within ASEAN countries which are
engineer, architecture, explorer, accountant, nurse, dentist, doctor, and tourism industry.
In other word, it means that each company will have bigger pool for the candidates they
choose to work for them, whereas competition in ASEAN workforce market will be
very high too. As a result, Globish perceives this circumstance as opportunities to grow
and expand to the new market. People from nine more countries could be the customer
of the company because each of them want to improve their competitiveness on English
skills in order to meet their job criterias they want to apply. According to uAsean, there
will be an average of 20 percent increase in the number of student who study foreign
language each year, while the market value of language institution will be increase of
22 percent annually (High Competitiveness among AEC,n.d.).
Since the AEC began, there are significantly high competitiveness among
English institutions as each company spot the language gap that each people need to
improve to be able to communicate when they have to work together. The criterias of
English institution that students and learners willing to study with have to be flexible
and accessible. To clarify, the schools should offer the course with the flexibility of time
because each of student has different daily schedule. For accessibility, it includes the
convenience as it could take the class online and in term of price that it should be
affordable. Students are less likely to focus on the reputation of the institution. Globish
Academia has came up with strategies and methodologies to catch the trustiness from
those students and learners. By having the efficiency assessment named Artificial
Intelligence, it significantly benefits Globish as the company understand customer
needs better through this method. Therefore, It will be easier for Globish to know which
area of improvement each student is needed and the company will be able to capture
new customers in this competitive market.
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3.3 Competitor Analysis
3.3.1 Topica Native
Topica Native is an online English school that applied the
advancement of technology as a tool for English education with the reputation of
number one leader of e-learning in Southeast Asia. It was found in Vietnam and then
partnered with the company in Thailand, Philippine, Indonesia and Singapore
respectively. There are more than 200 native teachers from Europe, Australia, and USA
with different accents to support student. Everyday from 8 A.M. to 24 P.M., Topica
Native opens the group-online classes and offers several courses based on student’s
English skills and period that they would like to take by initially starts at 30 days to the
maximum of 720 days. Course fee will be charged according to the trail that students
choose, the longer period of times, the higher of course fee.
The company mainly focuses on communication skills by encourage
students to speak English on a daily basis upon the topics that related on life and work.
Topica Native has changed a learning method from traditional (L.I.P.E), that designed
students to begin with theory lesson (Lecture), following by discussion with classmates
(Interactive), then practicing with teachers (Practice) and test (Exam) to the advancement
method in which they called P.I.E.L.E (Practice, Interaction, Evaluation, Lecture, Exam).
From the beginning, students will practice English speaking with native teachers even
they still incomprehensive understand of theory, following by exchange and discuss
with tutors in which they can help students correct all the mistakes, further evaluate
student’s performance on points of vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation. Finally,
they will be taken the lecture and re-evaluated on student’s English skills.
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Figure 3.5 Topica Native’s learning method
Topica Native gets the both sides respond from students. According to the
Topica Native’s website, 300 out of 1000 students are increasing their speaking scores
and up to 77% of them are more confident to communicate with foreigners. With the
good reputation, this might be the reason that Topica Native has rapidly expanded its
base company to many countries in Southeast Asia. However, some of the students have
complained on the service provided after they took the course. Most of the
dissatisfaction comments are teachers failed to start the class on time. Regarding to what
they have paid for the high cost of fee, students are expected to get full services from
learning at Topica Native.
3.3.2 Engoo
Engoo is an online English school that was established since
December 2013 in Japan. The company have the biggest growth in Japan when
compared to others school in the same market, more than 200,000 students have chosen
Engoo as their online English school. Engoo is now offering professional English
courses in Spain, Italy, Turkey, Russia, Brazil, Mexico, Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia,
Vietnam, Thailand and China. Engoo believes that an educational environment is very
important for learning English, and perhaps one of the best and fastest ways to improve
your English skills is through communication.
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Engoo offers learning plan vary from 1, 3 and 6-month plans as the company believe
that it will give such an optimized result for each student. The fee in each trial depends
on how many class or lesson per day student want, ranging from one to three lessons
per day. The company also provides the free trial for two lessons as the guidance for
new students as the figure below. The pattern for the courses offer will also be the same
for 3 and 6-month plan.
Figure 3.6 Example of lesson Engoo provide
Engoo lessons were divided into 4 levels which are Entry, Beginner,
Intermediate, and Advanced level in order to decide which class is the most suitable for
the English level each student currently has and ready to further improve. Moreover,
Engoo provides materials by topic as their lessons too, so student can choose the course
that fit with their needs of usage. In addition to above point, 10 materials by topics are
also offered from the company to support on what students are interested in.
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Figure 3.7 Example of material by topic of Engoo
Engoo got such a great feedback on social media, its website and popular
web board in Thailand like Pantip. Many of Engoo’s current students have agreed on
several positive points on why they have choose Engoo. The most important advantages
they could get is that Engoo provides two free lessons for them to try before they have
to actually pay, this allow them to make decision whether they like Engoo lessons and
how Engoo operate or not. How their teachers collected on their misspoken words is
another points students were talking about. Students said that teachers always type that
certain word for them in a chat box and try to collect on their pronunciations. Engoo has
emphasized on the lesson environment follow the company vision, students are much
enjoy the class as they said it is relax and the teachers are very friendly.
However, dissatisfaction comments also appear in order to ask for what is
better. Most students complained about the continuous of lesson. Because students have
to book their class as their preferent time in each day, so it less likely to ba same teacher
teaching them on each day. This is the main reason why the lessons are vary and less
likely to continue from previous class as it suppose to be. Some also concerns on the
point that Engoo has less native English speaker teachers because most of the teacher
they have met were Philippines. One drawback student were discussed is about how the
class can not count as a cumulative. To demonstrate, sometimes
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students cannot manage time to have the lesson everyday, Engoo deduct the lessons
they have left everyday even if they miss. As a result, students want Engoo to provide
cumulative or more flexible courses for them.
3.3.3 EF English Live
EF English Live is another online English school which it was found
in Switzerland during 1996 and having been the first of 7 days 24 hours online English
course. For nearly two decades, company has high reputation and being supported by
world class team of academic for more than 2,000 certified online English teachers.
Company’s mission is to use technology as a tools to create a fundamentally way to
learn English and enable to use English language in daily life such as traveling or
working environment. Further, the company has claimed that they have been helped
more than 20 million people across the world to success the online English class by
providing with the international standards of Common European Framework of
Reference (CEFR) for English levels A1 to C2.
The company sees the opportunity of learning English as a good
investment, therefore, over $80 million has been invested in research and development
to ensure the quality and standard of online English learning method. The company
comes up with the 2 major plans for studying which are “Self-Directed” that can access
24/7 to courseware and group conversation classes whereas “Teacher-Led” in which it
has all the same features in self-directed unless teacher-led offers private one-to-one
classes.
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Table 3.3. The differences between group and private class at EF
Group Classes Private Classes
● 45-minutes of teacher-led English
conversation
● Different, useful class topics
daily
● Small class size: 4-5 students on
average
● Classes available every 30
minutes, 24/7. No need to book.
● A 40-minute class tailored to
your individual goals
● Undivided attention and instant
feedback
● The supportive teacher of your
choice
● Classes available at any time
with 24-hour advanced booking
Apart from live conversation classes, EF English Live also offers the
specialised English course for specific goals. These English courses will teach on
specialised language for real-life situations according to student’s requirement.
Company provides Business English, TOEFL Preparation, TOEIC Preparation, Job
Specific English, Travel English, and General English respectively.
Students that have been studied with EF English Live stated that the courses
fee is overpricing. However, they are appreciated with the result since they studied with
the academic teachers who also teach at well-known university. Further, EF English
Live also support all the feature of English skills not only the communication. Most
students stated that it is good to study online and learning on writing, grammar plus
speaking skills through EF English Live’s courses.
3.3.4 Wall Street English
Wall Street English is the premier provider of English language
instruction for individuals and corporate clients around the world. Wall Street English
is a local company and a global company. It is a part of PEARSON, the world's largest
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education company. Wall Street English operates in Thailand for more than 10 years
under license of PEARSON Education Limited since 2003. The number of our student
is increasing continuously. Nowadays, the company has more than 2 million students
registered to study with.
Wall Street English has the unique English learning method designed
to encompass your language learning success called MULTIMETHOD®. Wall Street
English’s MULTIMETHOD® has been certified by the United Kingdom, Cambridge
University, and conducted the effective step-by-step learning that will exceed your
expectation. MULTIMETHOD® is suitable perfect for both beginners and advanced
learners who wish to develop their English skills to the next level.
Wall Street English’s MULTIMETHOD® consists with 5 main
learning steps. The detail of each step will be explained in the table below.
Table 3.3Wall Street English’s MULTIMETHOD®
Step Lesson Detail
Interactive Lessons Students will start with an Interactive Lesson, which
teaches new vocabulary, grammar and idioms through
dramatized real-life situations. Students can develop your
speaking skills through repeating, listening and reading
the new language learned. These lessons also have
periodic checkpoints where each student can confirm
what he/she has learned.
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Student Manuals Once students complete their Interactive Lessons, they
will move on to learning exercises in Wall Street English’s
Digital Books. They will have to complete different types
of exercises based on the vocabulary you are learning in
their lesson. Each of them can get feedback from their
teachers and get additional practice in the area where they
need more help.
Encounter This step is where the essential of the MULTIMETHOD
placed. It will be used with a small class size. The small
class at Wall Street English consists of no more than 4
students who are exactly at the same level as each others
in order to inspire and encourage each student to speak
English with a native English speaking teacher under a
relaxing atmosphere.
Social Club Area The learning club that makes student learning through fun
and engaging activities under the guidance of a native
English speaking teacher.
Complimentary The class that simulate real life situation for students to
practice English communication skills effectively.
Helping each of them to get used to speaking English in
their daily lives.
However, many students have complained about the overpricing of its
courses over Pantip web board and social media. Even though Wall Street English
provides a placement test for a new student to check their English level, the cost for
overall lessons each student should take in order to improve their English to the next
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level was considered as too expensive. Many people change their decision of studying
with Wall Street English after they know they amount of money they have to pay.
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Figure 3.8 The comparison between Globish Academia and its competitors
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CHAPTER 4
BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT AND COMPANY ANALYSIS
4.1 Company SWOT Analysis
4.1.1 Strength
The company offers a cost-effective tuition fee when people
compared with other online English school in Thailand
The company is highly reliable as it guaranteed by FORBE
Thailand, BBC, and “Seu Tid Peek” (Tiger with a wing) show, where
Globish Academia is the first tiger in the show.
The company has good connection with recruiting agencies, in
other word, the company will have bigger pool and better chance to
acquire qualified tutors.
The company available 24/7, where it is convenient for students
to pick the most suitable time for themselves and those who have
different living lifestyle from others like doctor, night shift engineer,
or freelance, can choose the most suitable time for themselves.
It has in-house engineer with their own technology and stable
server supported almost all area in Thailand.
4.1.2 Weakness
The reliability and trustworthy of native coaches are another
weakness factor for Globish Academia due to most of Globish
Academia’s teachers are Philippines and Eastern European nations
whereas American native coaches have higher based salary.
The ambiguous of course outline
Course content mismatches with student’s need due to some of
them prefer the customized course for specific development skill.
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In some circumstance, the demand and supply of both students
and coaches are more likely to unmatched with each other.
4.1.3 Opportunity
Since AEC start and Thai learners are still categorized in the
group of “very low proficiency’’ in English language. The big gap of
the English skills improvement should be bridged as soon as
possible for Thais to be able to compete with other learners who
come from different member countries and has higher English
proficiency.
The based income of Thai people has increased over time, so
they have higher purchasing power to buy products and services.
Thais become familiar with advanced technology devices along
with the use of the internet.
4.1.4 Threat
There are increasing number of the major competitors in online
English Institution along with the similar product offer that could
cause the high competitive among each other.
Most of Thai people still lake of information upon the online
English courses.
Online English Institution has less reliability comparison to
offline English Institution.
4.2 BUSINESS MODEL ANALYSIS
4.2.1 Customer Segment
For the customer segmentation, it can be analyzed that male/female at
the age of 23 to 27 are customer segment. Further, company analyzed customer behavior
from approximately 110 students, it was shown that the average age of customer based
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are at minimum of 18 to the maximum of 42, in which two-third of them was female
and the rest was male. Nearly two-fifth of overall student was the
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female ages between 23 to 27, which were considered as the highest group among
others. While the highest number of the male students are consisted of two age groups
which are 18 to 22 and 23 to 27 and each group carried approximately 27 percent.
4.2.2 Revenue Streams
Previously, Globish Academia has received the tuition fees from two
main groups of customer. Five percent come from B2B while another 95 percent come
from B2C. However, for now, the company want to change the revenue streams to Win-
Win Strategy by being a co-partner with bookstores such as Se-ed Book Center,
Asiabook, and Kinokuniya. These bookstores will give discount for Globish students.
Another services is being a consultants on preparing Letter of Recommendation for
applying jobs.
4.2.3 Channels
Previously, Globish Academia had only one channel to interact with
customers and raise the sale. The company used to sell an online English course via
telesale. After the Globish staffs had tried to be a student of online English school,
they had observed that there is no following up and repeat call after one it had been
done. Therefore, the company would like to shift from only telesale to other sale
strategies as it is another way to increase the communication channels to customers .
The company emphasize on follow up and repeat call processes for better customer
satisfactions. Globish Academia has launched the promotion called “Duet Set” which
the course price for two people will cost less than normal offer . The company also
want to build a strong brand awareness through social media such as Instagram,
Facebook, and Line@. In order to promote Globish Academia, the contents have to be
interesting to attract customers attention . Short video is provided on the website in
order to introduce the company coaches and 10 minutes free trial of online English
course is also offered by the company. So, the customers can make their decisions
whether they want to join Globish Academia or not.
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4.2.4 Customer Relationships
For the customer service, Globish Academia provided the 7 days 24
hours as advisory call center service in both of technical and courses consulting.
However, company has perceived that they need to improve the customer relationship
as a way gain the customer royalty from current clients. Therefore, “Travel like Local”
is the Globish Academia’s strategy by encouraged clients who just finish all courses to
take the one-day trip at tourist attraction. The aim of this activity would like to support
the real interaction between students and foreigner such as real-life conversation in
English language to finalize improve their communication skills and vocabulary.
4.2.5 Key Activities
Globish Academia conducted the one by one online English program
whereas students will get supported from qualified coaches. In order to attract new
customers in global market, company would like to apply the “customized course” that
they want to reach the goal as the provider of business English. Globish Academia will
act as a one-stop service for business English that provides knowledges of both English
language and business contents for its customers. The company believes that each
customer has hidden talents with business english, so the company want to help each
of them to empower and develop their talents beyond what they thought they capable
of. Globish Academia will provide the shortest video that promote on the customized
course for future clients as another channel to support their decision.
4.2.6 Key Resources
Previously, the key resources of Globish Academia come from
Philipines and Easterns European nations. The company has encouraged with One by
One program in which specialized coach would give the guidance directly to students
in every classes. In addition, company supported fast and prehensive internet network
that covered almost area in Thailand. Further, Globish Academia has tried to improve
their courses and its resource by hiring more American native coaches as a way to
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support the Globish Premium courses in which students can study English on speaking
skills and vocabulary with native speakers. To be more precise, company offers the
“offline Application” that provide the necessary English contents for student to learn
when they are offline. This can help them to prepare the learning content before taking
an online course with Globish Academia.
4.2.7 Cost Structure
Currently, Globish Academia has to carry the fix cost while operating
digital English online. Maintenance cost, coaches and staff salaries, advertising cost,
commision fees for telesale, and operation cost are the major fix cost of the company.
After company has been partnered with well known book store in Thailand, there will
be additional cost of operation in terms of gift voucher that offers for new clients who
decide to study online English institution at Globish.
4.2.8 Key Partners
Globish Academia has three main partners that help each other to
provide the effective and efficiency digital English learning. Those are programmer and
system administrator, providing coach agency, and advertising sale agencies. However,
to enhance the organization level, Globish would like to be partner in the section of
well known book stores and media education company. By doing this, students of
Globish will get the discount or voucher in which they can later purchase education
books in bookstore who has been partnered with Globish Academia such as Se-ed Book
Center, Asiabook, and Kinokuniya. The overall partnership aim to support each others
in the implementation, development, and distribution of Globish Academia.
4.3 Board Insight on Business Environment
Digital English learning in Thailand is very new with data underload.
Therefore, to seek a better understanding of market environment, the company defined
its market into several key stakeholders to learn from which are IPO
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companies that perform the similarity as Globish Academia, 2017 venture capital trend,
market size, and competitor analysis.
IPO companies share similarities in selling to consumer market, high
revenue growth with low profit margin, target one specific market which mostly are
kids, focus in human experience over technological feature, process tele-selling with 6
to 9 months friendly monthly package plan are still not successful in international
expansion.
2017 venture capital trend has been very dried up. Seed funding is scared
and mostly are funded by 500 Tuktuk and Dtac accelerate. Most investors are corporate
venturing and angel rather VC. Trend of generic type funding such as Telco (ecommerce
and sale engines) and Bank (fintech) are moving to diverse type funding such as
Property, Technology, and Construction. Everyone are not excited with users number
in innovative ideas, rather looking for survived start-up with reasonable traction,
pricing, and scaling model.
EdTech around the world has a very slow growth rate, but constant. Every
brand has multiple products around their key focus. Video lesson on demand, tutoring
platform, and game to learn English and coding are the most common. The five years
annual compound growth rate of English digital learning in Asia is around 4.5% and 22%
in Thailand. The company have market size of 30 million US dollar, equivalent to
740,000 learners with around 10,000 baht spending per head. Thai English market is
very fragmented and over 80% still relies on small brands.
Wall Street English and British Council are making their course more
affordable and personalize. Topica Native has shifted its focus to long-term
sustainability by focusing on product quality toward breaking even. They re-engineering
their back-office information management, created TV promotion for long-term
credibility and replacing Vietnam with Thai management. Engoo targeted lower market
reflecting from their reward & pricing promotion and campaign using motorcycle
drivers and housemates as key audiences. They remain their focus on
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branding rather marketing by partnering with Woody Talk Show. Their branding and
creativity is impressively constant by having well-known comedian learning weekly
and audience observe the improvement. Engoo offered business solution with selling
point of lowest practice course and most convenient products for employees.
In conclusion, Wallstreet and British Council are the company’s future
market when market adopt online learning more and when Globish Academia’s
premium native coaches are ready. Topica Native will be more threatening from less
marketing budget with better service and localization. Unlike Topica Native and Engoo
market are sophisticated user that seek practicing and corporate that seek low-cost
solution. If Engoo has big marketing spending, which they usually perform, they will
be the highest thread for Globish Academia in middle to long term.
4.4 Board Insight on Internal Performance
Globish Academia is unable to close more than 10 percent of corporate
inbound calls and 0 percent in outbound calls. The company believes that learners did
try enough to believe that it is about product-fit problem rather sale problem. Globish
Academia has changed four managers and that was a mistake, and Globish Academia
kept trying with new people but not new way. Insights the company received are
management do not use trial class we gave, price per head is too high compare to the
alternatives, completion among employees are low, and do not have clear ROI for
manager.
Globish Academia managed to solve product problem very effectively, but
the result of learning is not being emphasized in student journey. The completion,
technical error, complaint, and retention have been constantly improving. The company
communicate more often to the coach, monitoring more, add scoring and workbook
features for students, remind students for the class, and service them in middle of the
night. The company solved problem well, but it is far to perform as
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school. Feedback from students that the company have gotten the most is “how do I
know if I’m making progress?” and the company never give same answers. System in
developing student is still behind system in making class convenient. There is no clear
evidence if this is a problem, but the company know Globish still figuring out to claim
its promise with evidence.
Team grew from 5 people to 25 in a year with no major conflict or
unexpected human resource problem. Working culture and alignment have been the
strength. Shifting from gut feeling to data centric decision making has been smooth.
Lacking of engineer is solved. The company is a little over-resourced but is ready for
scaling and cost is manageable. Middle management has been built with clear
ownership in functional performance. Team energy, potential, and alignment is the
strength of Globish at least for another year or two.
Major feedback Globish Academia gets from potential investors are team
and sales are strong, but competitive edge and business model are weak. The company
does agree with the statement. Globish also foresees to IPO (Initial Public Offering) the
company by 2021, investor expect Globish will have better gross profit margin since
currently the company has only 35%. We need net profit of at least 20 million THB by
2020, which the gross margin should be around 50% with the constants revenue growth.
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CHAPTER 5
REFINED SCALING STRATEGY
From the environment and company analysis, there are tremendous
opportunities that Globish could pursue. As Globish is in the stage of transitioning from
a start-up to a corporate, these are the priorities of the executive management; revenue
growth, advancement in technology, and sustainable development program. The growth
of revenue will prevent Globish from future competitors and secure more funding for
rapid growth. Advancement in technology allow Globish to have better net margin with
less human capital and raise higher price. Sustainable development program will affect
in employer and customers’ retention and branding for long-term. These 3 are crucial in
scaling and is are core value toward the refinded scaling strategy using TOWS analysis.
5.1 TOWS Analysis
Table 5.1 TOWS Analysis
Opportunities:
1. AEC labor market
2. Income Increase
3. Internet usage
Threats:
1. Global Competitors
2. Low Awareness
3. Trust in Online Class
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Strength:
1. Cost-Effective
2. Credible Brand
3. In-house Recruiter
4. Convenient
5. In-house Technology
Platform Development
Strategy
(S5, O2)
Social Impact
Strategy
(S4, T1)
Weakness:
1. Teacher Image
2. Weak Course Outline
3. Not Customize
4. Demand & Supply
Product and Market
Development Strategy
(W3, O1)
Product and Market
Development Strategy
(W2, T2)
5.2 Product & Market Development Strategy
Globish Academia already has an ideal stage in the future, the company
want to reach the goal as the provider of business English. According to Ambient Insight
Premium Report, the high demand for specialized forms of English is one of the major
accelerators that drive the global digital English learning market (Adkins, 2014).
Globish Academia will be one-stop service for business English, the company will
provide knowledges of both English language and business contents for its customers.
Globish Academia believes that each customer has hidden talents with business english,
so the company want to help each of them to empower and develop their talents beyond
what they thought they capable of. By this, Globish Academia will deliver services,
solutions, and products which can eliminate cultural and language barriers to give
learners the ability to thrive in the current competitive world.
Since Globish Academia understands that each career acquire particular
knowledges and specific requirements in certain area, therefore the company also
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want to provide even more customized course by offering five key business areas for
customers to choose which one they are in. Consequently, customers will be able to
learn certain insight business ideas along with improving their English skills. The major
five business industries that will be include are IT Service and Consulting, Hospitality,
Financial Services, Transportation & Logistics, and Additional Industries. The benefits
of a business English investment in each industry is demonstrated in the table below.
Table 5.2 Ideal Stage of cuztomize industries
Industries Benefits of a Business English Investment
IT Service and Consulting ● Evident ROI (Return On Investion) from rising
business English skills
● Higher quality of project results and client
engagement
● Flexible learning solution and internationally
deployable
● Optimize the learning based on the learning plan
and standard benchmarking
● Raise responsiveness to client requirements
Hospitality ● Increase employees’s productivity due to the
insight education
● Increase the confidence of speaking English with
others co-learners and guests
● Enhance workplace productivity and
responsiveness
● Enable to provide the better customer service plus
performance inprovement
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Financial Services ● Employees are enable to use the insight
business vocabulary, understandable and
constructable sentences.
● Confidence communicating English upon
the job they responded.
● Speaking English more fluently and
accurately.
● Corrected email templates and culture
notes.
Transportation and Logistics ● Improved employee productivity
● More effective customer service
● The development of better leaders
● More efficient and effective global
collaboration
● Able to capture and develop the
opportunities from unstable landscape
Additional Industries
Energy & Utilities Gives learners the chance to develop essential
business skills from the company partners
Healthcare/Life Sciences ● Able to cut some costs and gain higher
return
● Closing the gap for Business English
● Capturing private skills measurement
dashboard
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Manufacturing ● Utilized a common business language
● Better communication among co-learners
during the operation processes.
Consumer Products and Retail ● Able to deliver the excellence business
skills upon customer services
Engineering & Construction ● Creating culture and embrancing
technology for comfortable using
technology
● Removing cultural and language barriers
Outsource Service Industries ● Faster placement of new hires into role
● Better ROI for employers
● Improve workforce communication ability
In the near future, Globish Academia want to serve two main types of
customer which are individual and organization level. Each customer level has different
needs of improvement. Therefore, the course will be customized accordingly to the area
that an improvement has to be take place. For individual level, Globish Academia will
offer the customized courses based on what customer need to develop. It could be vary
from certain event to others like job interviews, hiring screening tests, refine accent,
raise Business English proficiency, and get ready for conferences or meetings.
Individuals will be placed with an effective program customized to their current English
proficiency level. The company will also customize the courses by including the
customer’s career knowledges. As a result, customers can gain both English skills and
specific business knowledges at the same time.
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For organization level, Globish Academia want to be considered as the
leading supplier of Business English learning solutions for global organizations. The
company aims to partner with leading companies across the world in the section of
English as a second language publishing, education, technology and global business.
The overall partnerships object to support each others in the implementation,
development, and distribution of Globish Academia’s solutions. The company want to
serve worldwide corporations and consider them as a trusted learning partner not
customers. The company also believe that every learners and customers is unique,
therefore, Globish Academia will help organizations to leverage their learning and get
better business outcomes.
For the company that willing to acquire and develop global talent, the
business must relies on the right people to deliver value. Globish Academia will come
up with three program components which are Screen Candidates at Scale, Attract and
Retain Overseas Talent, and Build a World-Class Talent Bench. Those programs are
designed to develop the organization talents for the better outcomes.
On the other hand, the companies that want to improve the efficiency of
their business operations. Low quality performance, wasteful processes, and slow
reaction time have to be cut or minimized from the operations. Drive Global
Collaboration, Improve Customer Service, and Increase Productivity will be the three
important support programs that have been placed to eliminate those constraints.
Globish Academia will develop digital platform for Business English
learning solutions. It will offers both standard and professional platform for customers
to choose which one is more suitable for them. The standard type will encourage self-
paced with dashboard tracking. The program will support about eleven different levels
of multimedia self-learning tools which provides the engaging content for users at all
stages of the learning process. The self-paced language learning includes all core
elements that essential for Business English learning in which it is illustrate in table
below.
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Table 5.3 Standard Course
Core Elements (Standard) Contents (Standard)
Business Content Customers can directly access through the range of
self-paced learning program that suitable for their
level skills. Most of learning activities will be
engaged in multimedia content from Globish
Academia’s partners such as Financial Times. It
supports customers to develop their relevant business
skills, further extend their knowledge of global
situations.
Communication Skills Create communication activities for learners in all
levels as they practice and improve their
communication skills such as reading, listening,
writing, and speaking proficiency in Business
English.
Productivity Tools The standard type provides easy-to-use tools like
email templates and cultural briefings. These tools
help the company to deliver value when needed to
boost up the level of productivity.
Program Management Dashboard gives program management and real-time
reporting. By this, administrators can track each user
on his or her usage, then analyze learner progress in
which it will help to optimize programs and evaluate
ROI.
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While The Professional type will further extends from what the standard
has by adding the support from personal advisors and virtual classroom training. The
professional type will also include the feature “Talk with Teachers” and “Writing
Practice” feedback programs. The researches have been done and show the advantages
of this upcoming digital platform. Self-paced programs deliver a great experience for all
learning levels. Multimedia content and gamification tools that the company adapts to
use boost drive and engagement participation. Increased skills levels have been
calculated to save employees 2.5 hours per week,and over 51,000 hours per year. The
professional type will cover all core elements of the full-featured Professional solutions.
Table 5.4 Professional Course
Core Elements (Professional) Contents (Professional)
Business Content Customers can directly access through the range of
self-paced learning program that suitable for their
level skills. Most of learning activities will be
engaged in multimedia content from Globish
Academia’s partners such as Financial Times. It
supports customers to develop their relevant
business skills, further extend their knowledge of
global situations.
Communication Skills Create communication activities for learners in all
levels as they practice and improve their
communication skills such as reading, listening,
writing, and speaking proficiency in Business
English.
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Productivity Tools The standard type provides easy-to-use tools like
email templates and cultural briefings. These tools
help the company to deliver value when needed to
boost up the level of productivity.
On-Demand Learning The program offers ways to practice Business
English by providing feedback from teacher in a
virtual classroom also supports with spelling
corrections and style of writing assignment.
Advice and Encouragement Globish advisor offers the support of an involved
personal advisor with insight knowledge of the One
platform and expertise in the latest motivational
techniques to keep every learner’s progress on track.
Program Management Dashboard gives program management and real-
time reporting. By this, administrators can track
each user on his or her usage, then analyze learner
progress in which it will help to optimize programs.
The Customer Success team will cooperate with
customer to find the suitable key performance
indicators.
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Apart from the professional and standard, Globish Academia also want to
provides additionally services for customers who are looking for specific areas of
improvement.
5.2.1 Assessment
Assessment will be a tool that provides accurate, reliable, and fast
evaluation. The assessment can access easily through the online dashboard on the
Globish Academia’s website. Each assessment session can take from 15 to 60 minutes,
it depend on which test is most appropriate for the clients level. Assessment offers the
ideal pre-screening instrument for international recruitment, with the capability to
measure applicants in different locations against the same job requirements. The
assessment also indicates individual progress and requirements as it is part of a Business
English learning program
5.2.2 Coach
Globish Academia Coach will reinforce the self-paced learning
platform along with personalize coach to help learners speed up on developing their
business performance, making the ideal of managers, and coming up with potential
talent for a new business role. Coach will integrate into Globish Academia platform in
order to give the preparation, followed by activities, and feedback provide after finish
the session.
5.2.3 Exacutive Coach
For the Executive Coach, company will provides the one-to-one
virtual coaching in which it is designed to help senior executives excel in global
leadership positions. Highly qualified coaches will work with executives to speed up
their learning by focusing on specific needs such as leadership skills, keynote speech,
and conducted the board meeting. In addition, there are flexible schedule management
along with customized session between coaches and learner.
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5.2.4 Virtual Group
Globish Academia Virtual Group will bring learners from different
places in a virtual classroom as a way to assist them extend their business knowledges
and English skills through the group sharing experiences. Further, the group will be
coached by qualified teachers by helping clients to improve their conversation skills
along with build up their confidence. With the professional discussions, clients will have
to exchange their relevant business topics upon the negotiate with clients and colleagues
management.
5.2.5 Focus
Globish Academia Focus will offers intensive ten-week courses that
helps clients quickly develop their Business English proficiency in particular area
such as workplace scenario and specific task that they get from workplace. This
program will be combined self-learning digital activities along with the live online
interactive with expert coaches to give guidance, feedback, assessment and
knowledge tests on business skills.
5.2.6 Dashboard
Globish Academia Dashboard will give complete control over the
entire Globish program. It allows administrators to access the information they need.
For example, administrators need to track each customer progress, so they can decide
which specific learning program is the most suitable for that certain customer in order
to achieve business goals and optimize upcoming activities. Dashboard can help to
activate learning leaders to respond to personal preferences, performance tracking data,
and develop business objectives.
All in all, Globish Academia plans to position itself as one-stop
Business English institution in the near future. The expanding product and service plans
are put in line for research and development. Furthermore, Globish Academia try to
improve the products and services to be more customized in order to gain customer
satisfactions in terms of individualized course and organization scale.
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5.3 Platform Development Strategy
Globish has established White House Assessment as a subsidiary company
in order to fill the mentioned gap among the diversity of working environment. White
House Assessment was established in 2017 aiming to be one-stop English assessment
and advisory service for all English speaking learners. The standout features of this
subsidiary are the artificial intelligence (AI), ESL staffs (English as a secondary
language) and the CEFR coaches.
White House Assessment has developed the system called Artificial
Intelligence or what people known as AI with compu
